Thursday, April 20, 2017

Painted in the studio, after re-inventing a plein air study that doesn't look much like this. I was mainly trying to capture the time of day and suggest the depth in the scene. I decided to jump into a more complex problem, after my exercises with simple compositions. I really had to apply the things I mentioned in my last post. Simplifying things down to design the shapes in the light and the shapes in the dark into two big separate groups. Then, we have a chance at painting what otherwise would result in visual chaos. It always impresses me how important it is to work out the separation of values in the big shapes. I try to block-in each of those simple shapes as flat silhouettes in their average value and dominant color. If we get those properly related it's easy enough to go back and add a lighter or darker value shift to suggest more "detail" without trying to paint "things".

Wednesday, April 19, 2017

One of a series using simple compositions to practice value separation of shapes, and color to indicate depth. Learning to arrange the various shapes in a painting so as to make a clear value interpretation of a scene is the biggest help in choosing "right color".

Value must come before color, because above everything else it makes order out of the scene we want to represent. I work with a range of nine values, #1 is the lightest possible light, #9 is the darkest possible dark. The painting is blocked in using only values #2 through #8. This way I can reserve the high-lights and darkest darks to place the accents as I'm finishing the painting. With the values worked out, first, I can then select hues with confidence. Almost any color will work if it's value is correct. In this painting I have intentionally selected the warmest, most high chroma colors for the foreground, and the color becomes cooler and grayer as it moves into the distance.

Thursday, April 6, 2017

Whether we're painting from life, or photos, our job is not to copy what we see. The complexity of detail, color and the range of light in nature is overwhelming, and photographs are full of all kinds of lies and errors that are deadly to our art. Painting is about the composition of shapes, values and color designed to evoke something beyond simple recognition of the subject matter.

All the skills and information we are amassing are the tools we use in our efforts to interpret the subject. Our interpretation is more important than what we're looking at. The subject reference doesn't present us with much that's ready to be painted. Life or photographs are just the painter's departure point. There is much thinking and planning to be done, before we mix the paint and put it on the canvas. Questions to be answered about how we'll arrange things. and solve problems. All with the hope of creating harmony, balance and a connection for the viewer. So many things that can frustrate our efforts! Much of what is seen will need to be discarded when we see that it is non-essential to what we're trying to paint. Simplification is necessary to managing the ingredients that go into a painting. There's the key!

About Me

I paint outdoors because I love being out there creatively enjoying and interacting with nature. I paint indoors because of an obsession to make the most of sharing the beauty I've experienced. Both processes have their unique challenges, and both disciplines inform the other. This blog is a look at what I'm painting, and a bit on the way I go about it.
I'd like to hear from any of you who have comments or questions. Thanks, for having a look.
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